Kagan the Statist Admires Feingold Condescension

Seems that Ms. Kagan has a very cramped view of Free Speech--or more accurately, she has a view which would cramp YOUR Free Speech.

(Cramping YOUR Free Speech is a Russ Feingold specialty; it was his very own un-constitutional law which SCOTUS knocked apart here.)

Here's an excerpt from Roberts' concurring in Citizens United:

“The Government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech. It asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concern,” wrote Roberts. “Its theory, if accepted, would empower the Government to prohibit newspapers from running editorials or opinion pieces supporting or opposing candidates for office, so long as the newspapers were owned by corporations—as the major ones are. First Amendment rights could be confined to individuals, subverting the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy.”

Even Kennedy couldn't swallow the Gummint position. In his opinion, the following:

“When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought,” Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. “This is unlawful...."

While you may argue that Kagan's job (Solicitor General) required her to argue the case on behalf of the RabbleRouser-in-Chief, that's not precisely true.

When President Obama announced Monday that he was nominating Kagan to the Court, he said that the Citizens United case was the first that she had argued before the court as solicitor general, and her decision to do so had been indicator of her “commitment to protect our fundamental rights.”

“I think it says a great deal about her commitment to protect our fundamental rights, because in a democracy, powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens,” said Obama.

IOW, Kagan had a very competent assistant who had already pushed the Company line and certainly could do so again. Obama's yappaflappa tells us that Kagan personally believed that the First Amendment is malleable.

Wrong-o. Arrogance and condescension on a Russ Feingold scale cannot really be defended.